If I Were King | Page 5

and I expect to learn much in my turn."
Tristan looked pityingly at the complacent king. "You are likely to
learn how unpopular you are, which I could have told you without this
trouble; and you will be lucky if you do not get your throat cut into the
bargain."
Something almost like a smile disturbed the familiar composure of the
king's wrinkles. He took another sip of the wine and his affability
expanded. "You are always a bird of evil omen," he chirped. "Be bright,
man; look at me. The Burgundian Leaguer is at my gates; my throne
sways like a rocking-chair, yet I don't pull a sad face."
"It's a good thing that somebody is pleased," Tristan commented.
"Yes," said Louis, opening out his thin hands and studying their palms
attentively, "I am pleased--" Tristan interrupted him roughly. "Pleased
that the Burgundians threaten you outside the walls of Paris; pleased
that Thibaut d'Aussigny bullies you inside the walls of Paris; pleased
that your soldiers are mutinous; pleased that your citizens are sullen; by
my faith, here are four royal reasons for a royal pleasure."
Louis shook his head playfully at his servant's grumbling. "Gossip
Tristan," he asked, "do you know why I have come to this hovel
to-night? I do not walk abroad like a king-errant in mere idleness of
mind. I have come to learn what company my lord the Grand Constable
keeps." Tristan's shaggy eyebrows arched in surprise as the king
continued: "Our good Olivier assures us that our dear Thibaut
d'Aussigny has taken it into his head of late to walk the streets by night
and to haunt strange taverns such as this same Fircone. I am plagued
with a womanish curiosity, Tristan, and I thought I would peep over

Messire Thibaut's shoulder and have an eye on his cards."
Tristan chuckled. "The Grand Constable bears you a grudge since you
chose to turn a kind eye on the girl of Vaucelles."
"She was a wise virgin to dislike Thibaut," mused the king. "Was she a
foolish virgin to mistrust your majesty?" questioned Tristan. Louis
shrugged his shoulders. "She is a proud piece, gossip. When I told her
that she took my fancy she flamed into a red rage that chastened me.
But if she's not for me she's not for Thibaut either." "The Grand
Constable is a bad enemy," Tristan commented. The king replied at
random.
"Tristan, I had a strange dream last night I dreamed that I was a swine
rooting in the streets of Paris, and that I found a pearl of great price in
the kennel. I picked it up and set it in my crown--"
"A crowned pig," Tristan interrupted. "'Tis like a tavern sign." Louis
did not seem to resent the interruption.
"My good gossip, in a dream nothing seems strange. Well, as I said, I
set this pearl in my crown and the light of it seemed to fill all my good
city of Paris with glory so that I could see every street and alley, every
tower and pinnacle, more clearly than in a summer's noon. And then
memought that the pearl weighed so heavy upon my forehead that I
plucked it from its place and cast it to the ground, and would have
trodden it under foot when a star shot swiftly from Heaven and stayed
me."
The king looked eagerly at his companion, who seemed wholly
uninterested in the narrative of the royal vision. "Dreams and stars,
stars and dreams," he sneered. "Leave dreams to weaklings, sire." Louis
frowned. "Don't sneer, gossip, but instruct, who are these people?" and
the sharp, lean face of the king thrust itself forward a little, bird-like
from the nest of its hood, in the direction of the gamblers. His
companion shrugged his shoulders.
"Some of the worst cats and rats in all Paris," he answered. "The men

belong to a fellowship that is called the Company of the Cockleshells,
and babble a cant of their own that baffles the thief-takers. If your
majesty--" but here a warning kick from Louis made him wince and
change his words-"if you wished to savour rascality these are your
blades. The women are trulls. Yonder she-thing in the man's habit is
Huguette du Hamel, a wild wench, whom men call the Abbess for her
nunnery of light o' loves. There be four of her minions with her now,
Jehanneton la belle Heaulmiere as they name her, Denise the
slipper-maker, Blanche and Isabeau. Oh, they are delectable doxies!"
King Louis pursed his thin lips in austere censure. "They shall be
reproved hereafter," he said. "Who are the men?"
"Worthy Adams of such pestilent Eves," Tristan answered. "That
slender fellow in the purple jerkin is one René de Montigny, of gentle
birth, and a great breaker of